MartinSW

EVAW Day Global Livestream Tune in on November 25th for a landmark global livestream featuring impactful stories, expert panels, and inspiring performances to mobilize action to end violence against women and girls worldwide.

On November 25, the NO MORE Foundation and Centre for Public Impact host a global broadcast for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
📺 Learn more and tune in here: streamyard.com/watch/HdzuJx... #EVAW #Donate #OrangeTheWorld #UNiTE #CollectiveAction #HumanRights

The Great AI Bubble Yes, it's a bubble. And yes, it's going to burst.

open.substack.com/pub/broligar.... “What we’re seeing is a closed doom loop.These companies are stealing every scrap of data they can find,throwing compute power at it, draining aquifers of water and national grids of electricity and all we have is software you can’t trust not to make things up.”

Vladimir Putin has no plan for winning in Ukraine Fighting in Ukraine will grind on in 2026. Vladimir Putin will continue to throw away Russian lives pointlessly, but sooner or later a reckoning is coming

economist.com/the-world-ah...
“In the year to mid-October, Russian casualties grew by almost 60%, to somewhere between 984,000 and 1,438,000. The dead now number between 190,000 and 480,000.. Russia is advancing, but...if the killing continues at 2025’s rate, Russian casualties will reach almost 4m

The Mamdani Method Five lessons to anchor a Democratic Party adrift at sea

www.waleed-shahid.com/p/the-mamdan.... “..politics regains power when it is concrete, confident, and collective. Mamdani turns affordability from mood to mechanism, conflict from noise to education, style from branding to presence, culture from division to coalition…” #auspol Masterful…

Reading is the new resistance In this age of rage, books restore to us what algorithms have removed – the ability to think as others think

app.thenewworld.co.uk/story/144645... “The first thing that fascist regimes do is burn books. Reading is the most subversive thing we can do in a culture…When we read, we are invited to escape the stockade of the fearful self.”

openai.com/index/ai-pro.... “..the cost per unit of a given level of intelligence has fallen steeply; 40x per year..over the last few years!
In 2026, we expect AI to be capable of making very small discoveries.In 2028 and beyond..we will have systems that can make significant discoveries.” #ai #agi

Welcome To The New Warring States | NOEMA Today’s global turbulence has echoes in Chinese history.

www.noemamag.com/welcome-to-t... “Trumpism..is not isolationist or nihilistic, but fundamentally opposed to established diplomatic norms and rituals..legitimacy comes not from international approval but from output: industrial strength, cultural cohesion and strategic clarity.” #newworldorder

The Age of Anti-Social Media Is Here The social-media era is over. What’s coming will be much worse.

www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202.... “What ..is unfolding—is the beginning of a new digital era, more actively anti-social than the last. Generative AI will automate a large number of jobs, removing people from the workplace..will almost certainly sap humanity from the social sphere as well.” #ai

Hollowed out: can the centre hold? Can the centre hold and resist the far right?

geoffmulgan.substack.com/p/hollowed-o.... “..this risks making the far right the only change option in elections at a time when much of the public badly want change..because the centre lacks a flow of ideas, it risks becoming too hollow and weak to withstand its opponents with compelling arguments.”

In AI era, humanities must defend the right to roughness In a recent article, I argue that academics and students must consciously preserve the ethical, intellectual and stylistic stakes of learning to count...

www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?sto.... “We need classrooms that cultivate discernment, not dependence. Instead of banning AI..we can teach students to annotate and question.. restore tension and voice.The goal is not prohibition but reflection..discernment in a world of digital fluency.” #ai

Canberra's 'toothless' AI policy leaves experts unimpressed The Digital Transformation Agency says it is satisfied federal agencies are complying with new disclosure rules for AI use but will continue to work with some after researchers found the “soft touch” ...

www.innovationaus.com/canberras-to.... “The result is a fragmented, inconsistent landscape that undermines the very trust the policy was meant to build. And the public has no way to understand – or challenge – how AI is being used in decisions that affect their lives…” #ai #regulation

How this socialist rapper can lead the fight against Trump This 34-year-old socialist struck a chord in the epicentre of capitalism. Can Democrats use Zohran Mamdani’s campaign playbook to take on Donald Trump?

www.afr.com/world/north-.... “First, Democrats must understand that so long as voters say cost of living is their main issue, candidates should be talking about it first, second and third. Saving democracy and social issues must take a back seat.” Yes. And no.

Why is the ACCC backing off Big Tech crackdown? AI increases the urgency of proper regulation. So why did the government defund and disband the competition watchdog’s world-leading team of digital markets experts?

www.afr.com/policy/econo... “Many articles concerning so called “big tech” can come across as anti-tech. But we can be pro-tech and also recognise that entrenched big tech oligopolies and the proper functioning of markets can be incompatible.” More #uncommonsense from Rod Sims #ai #regulation

Sorry Boomers, but a death tax would help the rest of us Are older generations so entitled to assets they didn’t earn that they won’t lift even the smallest finger to help young workers who can’t inherit family wealth?

www.afr.com/policy/tax-a.... “Is my generation so entitled to assets we did not earn we will not lift the smallest finger to help young workers without access to family wealth? Do our political leaders have the interests of young workers or older retirees closer to their hearts?” #tax #auspol

Google unveils quantum computing breakthrough on Willow chip The “Quantum Echoes” algorithm, detailed in the science journal Nature, is verifiable, meaning it can be repeated on another computer.

www.afr.com/technology/g.... I”t also ran 13,000 times faster than possible on the world’s best supercomputer, said Google, adding that taken together, the advances point to a broad range of potential uses in medicine and materials science.” #quantum

‘The platforms got worse because we let them!’: Cory Doctorow on his fight to save the internet from enshittification The author and cyber-activist argues that the tech giants have ruined life online. The only thing that can save the virtual world now, he tells Zoë Corbyn, is its users

www.thenerve.news/p/cory-docto... “..decay follows a recurring pattern: platforms start by offering great service, then degrade once users are locked in… those businesses are…squeezed for profit until all that remains is just enough value to keep everyone stuck.” #enshitiffication

“Across settings, one pattern recurs: local actors write the rules, test them in real-time, iterate quickly, and share lessons upward once national bodies are ready.”

From risk to resilience: No-code AI governance in the Global South No-code AI governance empowers the Global South to build local guardrails, bridge skills gaps, and enable inclusive, resilient adoption.

oecd.ai/en/wonk/from.... In other words, the same plain-language interface that enables teams to build AI helpers also allows them to embed guardrails, monitor usage, and escalate problems—governance at the speed of adoption.” #ai #globalsouth

Europe’s Choice in the Face of Global Reckoning - CIRSD CIRSD

www.cirsd.org/en/horizons/.... “…although these challenges are so existential, Europe has rarely remained so silent, its voice so hollow, its actions so lacking..when the world cries out for clear leadership..Europe hides behind rhetoric, reports without follow-up, and sterile debate.” #EU #global

Conway’s Law at Government Scale - Niskanen Center When government agencies are siloed, or poorly coordinated, the services they deliver carry the same flaws.

www.niskanencenter.org/conways-law-.... “If the architecture of the system and the organization are at odds, the architecture of the organization wins.” Communication. Incentives. Feedback. Yes, we know. So why don’t we? #organisations #orgdesign

The Caerphilly vote shows Farage won’t be the next prime minister Reform’s lack of a ground game and vulnerability to tactical voting were exposed on what was also a disastrous night for Labour

app.thenewworld.co.uk/story/144199... “The Welsh Conservatives are not worth the length of this sentence.” What a brilliant line😂

AI isn’t taking our jobs, it’s just giving us more work Consistently, we’ve heard that no job is safe from AI disruption. But what if instead of making us more efficient, it is actually doing the opposite?

www.smh.com.au/business/wor.... “But underneath this shiny surface is the sad reality that some of the output is actually unhelpful, misleading, incomplete or not properly understood by the person creating it.” #ai

OpenAI’s latest ‘breakthrough’ is a sobering reality check The company’s leading scientists claimed GPT-5 had solved a famous set of math problems. Turned out it had basically “Googled” the answers.

www.afr.com/technology/o.... “Genuine reasoning that pushes the frontier of scientific knowledge shouldn’t be confused with ChatGPT’s ability to remix the world’s knowledge, especially by the company’s own researchers.” #ai

The next hack target isn’t your phone, it’s your mind Neurotechnology poses a question that sounds like science fiction: how do we protect human rights when technology can decode our thoughts?

www.afr.com/technology/t.... “Already, neurotechnology companies are selling direct-to-consumer devices that collect brainwave data…A recent study found that 24 out of 30 neurotech companies producing consumer products could sell users’ neural data under their existing privacy practices.” #privacy

“Getting policymakers to take redlines seriously …will be a difficult fight, but without it, we risk..our ability to fight for all the other things that are necessary for our individual and common good. We can have mass surveillance, or we can have political self-determination. We can’t have both.”

To Have Democracy, We Must Contest Data | TechPolicy.Press Emily Tucker makes the case for redlines for data, not AI—real limits on corporate data collection to protect democracy and political self-determination.

techpolicy.press/to-have-demo.... The nub: “When governments can no longer provide the public with essential services without access to digital products that are the intellectual property of megacorporations, that’s a degree of leverage to turn any redline into a punchline.” #ai #regulation

There is a silver bullet for childhood happiness: a love of reading Bestselling children’s author Katherine Rundell says to reverse the reading crisis we must let young people rediscover the enjoyment of books — whatever they may be

“In the past two decades, since the advent of the reading surveys…, there has been a 36 per cent fall in the number of children who say they enjoy reading in their spare time. The number of children who read outside school every day has halved in 20 years.”
www.thetimes.com/article/3c64...

Can molecular Lego save the planet? The Nobel Prize-winning MOFs could be used to mop up pollutants, turn toxic substances benign and make water from desert air

www.ft.com/content/e8aa....
”MOFs are…versatile, scalable, customisable fixes for atmospheric and industrial challenges: mopping up pollutants, including carbon and so-called forever chemicals; snatching water from desert air…and converting toxic substances into benign ones” Blimey☺️💪

Dirt-rich nation: Australia’s big test to plug in to the future We’re blessed with the critical minerals that will power the world, but can Australia rise to the many challenges?

www.smh.com.au/politics/fed.... . “We currently export raw materials for China to refine, and we lack the capacity to produce batteries. That means we’re essentially ruling our nation out of being an integral part of the global clean energy transition.” #energy #transition

Opinion | Trump’s Big Beautiful Gaza Peace Plan If it strikes you as foolish, consider how well the serious people’s ideas have turned out in the Mideast.

www.wsj.com/opinion/trum...
“…counsel caution—it could all fall apart, joy may be premature. But I’ll take my joy premature, bartender. If it turns out progress was illusory we will at least have reacquainted ourselves with optimism..energetic, something that can get you through the next day.”